3 Crayons Build Fine Motor Skills

Children develop in a systematic pattern as well as in a sequential pattern.

You can think of it as rungs on a ladder.

Your child must be firmly set on one step before challenging himself to the next. Fortunately, children’s “learning systems” are already built-in and they will move on when they are ready.

YOUR job then is to RECOGNIZE which rung of the ladder your child is on and then provide activities that are appropriate for that particular step.

For example, if your preschooler is able to hold a crayon to draw, you can provide your child with many activities that will strengthen these Fine Motor Skills while exposing him or her to NEW skills.

One day your child can use 3 Different Color of Crayons and you can make up “games” in identifying the colors.

“Let’s color this whole paper with our red crayon!” “Let’s draw in circles with our blue crayon!” “Let’s use our blue and red crayon to color this picture!” “What do you want to color with the red crayon?”

“What crayon haven’t we used?” “The green crayon!”

“Let’s make a picture with our green crayon so it doesn’t feel left out!”

“Let’s color the triangles green!”

“Do you see anything in the room that is green?”

So now you’ve incorporated LANGUAGE SKILLS through your discussions, as well as CONCEPTS through your designs and choices, as well as FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS, as well as LEARNING and IDENTIFYINGColors and Shapes!

You can substitute different writing tools:

paints

sidewalk chalk

washable markers

finger paint

white board markers

You can color on different surfaces as well:

And remember: throughout all of these “games” and “activities”, your child’s Fine Motor muscles are growing stronger by the minute which will soon bring him or her to the next developmental step of holding a pencil!